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Thanks for the charging time test,was curious about that.As for more devices with large battery maybe we'll see more but it's not all about sealing the battery,Moto did a couple of other things like use a thinner screen and populate only 1 side of the PCB.Ofc the touch layers are about to get thinner and Gorilla 2 is also a bit thinner so in theory it is getting easier to fit a larger battery.Problem is that the industry thinks 1 day battery life is the sweetspot and the marketing guys like thinner much better.so chances are that we'll see 6mm phones or less soon but not many will race to include a large battery in a thicker package.There is a next step soon to make em even thinner but,i'll let the phone makers figure that out .Reply

I know, right? I've been sick of the lopsided top end since the designs first came out. I find it a bit ironic that a non-iPhone device went with the built-in battery as that's one of the mantras the Apple haters immediately scream about. This phone sets a high bar for talk time, for sure, though I personally use my cellphone for mostly data related activities.Reply

So if I'm not worried about computational advantages offered by the new processors and care strictly about battery life on LTE (and recognizing that predicting the future is hard...) which will better get me through the day?Reply

At what time in the past 25 years has something bigger, faster, sleeker, smarter, or better NOT just been around the corner?

There will be something even COOLER coming out after Krait. There always is. If you need a new device, unless you actually NEED what the next generation has, just buy the device that is best for you now.Reply

If you're not worried about compute advantages. Get this. I'd guess most phones built on 28nm CPU's will use the lower power draw to allow smaller cheaper batteries not two days of battery life (at least not at first).

The Razor MAXX also the obvious advantage of being available NOW instead of some unspecified date in the future. :)Reply

Too bad it seems the larger battery comes with quite a large price increase.Actually the no contract price increase seems somewhat reasonable (649$ vs 599$) though it seems verizon tacks on another 50$ so it's 199$ vs 299$ with the same contract.Reply

They do the same with all their android devices. Charge an early adopter premium on the latest and greatest until it's dethroned after a month or two; then significantly discount older models for customers who balk at paying anything upfront for their new phone.Reply

Please... You really think all the different stupid names are chosen by Sammy?

Trust me when I say that if Sammy could've had their way, they'd just slap on GALAXY SII on all the assorted variations of the phone and be done with it, reaping the rewards of a streamlined marketing campaign focused on a single brand in the process.

Of course it's the carriers who want different names for their versions! They need this in order to "differentiate" from the competition. Poor Americans, always getting screwed over by the greedy - and inordinately powerful - carriers.Reply

"I guess that really illustrates what’s wrong with the way that OEMs are specifying device “thickness” these days more than anything, as most intentionally cite the device thickness at its thinnest point. One other OEM has told me it’s going to move to a mean thickness measurement, which seems to be more representative but potentially complicated."

Personally, I'm waiting for one of the OEMs to add back an old school slide out antenna so they can claim their phone is only 1 mm thick. (Minimum antenna diameter on a 2005 vintage Samsung.)Reply

This is by far the best Razr Maxx review that I've seen so far and if my contract were up I'd probably buy one once it gets ICS. It's not exactly what I want but it comes closer than anything else on the market right now. For what it's worth the improvements that I'd like to see for the RAZR Maxx II are quad-core for the energy sipping 5th core, a 4.5" 720 advanced SAMOLED display, and a built-in 32GB of storage with official support for add in 64GB microSD cards. It's rumored that they work now but official support is better. Admittedly I'm a power user but it would be nice to be able to store 30GB of high quality music plus photos, plus audiobooks, plus a huge 3rd party GPS app with on board maps. If it saves me having to pack a high-end GPS and a high capacity audio player along with my smartphone I'd pay a premium. Anyway I have high hopes that Motorola will release something along those lines this summer - just in time to renew my Verizon contract.

One concern with the built in battery concept is that while I have no problem buying a new phone every two years for new technology I have a big problem having to get it fixed early because the battery capacity is down or even at 2 years because the battery is worn out. That's planned obsolesce like the 70s cars that fell apart as soon as the warranty was up. I've traditionally replaced my original batteries after 12 months and it sucks not to be able to do that.

Again a really nice review. Hard numbers (including the WHr conversion) like these trump the fluff I've seen elsewhere. Reply

The battery life is rather disappointing for web browsing, however. Have you guys considered running the latest versions of Opera Mobile to see if there's a better subjective result across several different devices?

I'm really curious to see how some of the Anna, Belle, and WP Nokia phones compare. I'm in the market for a new phone and the camera is the more important aspect of the device for me. It'd be nice to have AT broaden their testing platform to provide more comparison. :)Reply

I had forgotten you guys did that - my mistake! I also didn't see the N8 review you guys did early of '11. Considering how cheap an N8 is now (off-contract), that may be my phone of choice. Unless its successor will be unrealistically cheap.

I picked one of these up over the weekend and have mostly good things to say. It was between this and the Nexus I opted for the droid because it had the bigger battery, better camera, and SD card. The battery does take awhile to fully charge, and I don't like some of the software that comes installed but those are minor grievances. I am anxious to upgrade to ICS but GB is fine for the time being. Overall it's a pretty nice phone, I would have liked a slightly bigger screen but the resolution is decent.

Thank you for another great review.As I was browsing through the phone benchmarks in the database the other week I noticed that this phone was listed there. Just out of curiosity, why was the benchmarks uploaded there before the review?

Our backend is completely integrated, in this case our Bench system is tied into our graphing system. So we'll typically put a new product in Bench and then generate graphs from that, in which case if we don't set it to private mode it will show up in Bench before it's in an article.Reply

Well, its a start anyway. The device really isnt that much bigger. There is no reason why every device cant have at least 12 hours of web time. Unfortunately this translates into only two maybe 3 hours of playing a game that uses a 3d gfx engine after you've had the phone for a couple months.Reply

I assume still no update to the device or firmware to get rid of the rediculous neon green push? I took mine back as I couldnt stand the colors on the RAZR. I doubt they have any plans to change, though. Reply

I've went through 4 batteries and 2 handsets on the Rezound, and *never* got that battery life.4-5 hours with 1-2 hours of screen time on LTE was a MAX.... it would eek out 12 hours of standby time with no data sync (LTE on, why have the phone if LTE wasn't running?) ... and my LTE signal strength was often very good... Co-workers with a galaxy nexus sitting next to me, doing the same stuff, would *easily* get twice the battery life.

Would be interesting to see if you got a hand picked review unit or not...Reply

Having the thinnest/lightest phone in the world is no help if it spends most of it's time charging or switched off to conserve it's minuscule battery.

I replaced the default 1400MaH battery in my HTC desire with an oversized 3200MaH extended battery, I don't think i could ever go back to a standard capacity battery now...I'm admittedly an unusually heavy user, but i think the phone should not have been released with anything less than a 2000MaH battery or there abouts, such a battery would have added almost nothing to the dimensions/weight but increased the endurance of the phone a great deal.

So heres hoping more manufacturers follow suit and offer a sane battery capacity option in their handsets :)Reply

I wouldn't even bother thinking of them as a different size, despite 2x the battery basically. If I were getting an Android phone, I'd never get this one because of the sealed battery, but still it shows how Apple and the like SHOULD be able to radically increase battery life without too much larger size devices (and I'd gladly take something 2 or 4x as thick for the increased battery life too).

The iPod touch at least has a pitiful battery life, and it's only got a super sluggish A8 CPU, with a pitiful 256MB.Reply

This phone is a killjoy for technocrats and enthusiasts - it prevents people from installing the latest and greatest software on it by locking the bootloader which Motorola has promised to unlock and failed to deliver on by end of 2011.